WHEN THE BUSH administration turned over much of its Iraqi security operations to the private sector last year, one of the companies that stood to profit was the London-based Hart Group. Run by former British soldiers, the firm received a large contract through the Army Corps of Engineers to guard Iraqi energy facilities and protect engineers rebuilding the country’s electricity network.

Hart’s hiring practices might have passed entirely unnoticed had one of the company’s employees not died in a firefight with Iraqi insurgents last spring. The victim was 55-year-old Gray Branfield, a former covert-operations specialist in South Africa’s fight to preserve white minority rule. In the early 1980s, the apartheid government decided to assassinate the top 50 African National Congress (ANC) officials living beyond the country’s borders, and Branfield was charged with tracking down apartheid opponents in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Zambia. “We saw it as a battle in the global war to fight communism,” he said in an interview shortly before his death. - Barry Yeoman, Dirty Warriors, Mother Jones

Globaler Krieg gegen den Faschismus - Weltkrieg II, globaler Krieg gegen den Kommunismus - Weltkrieg III, globaler Krieg gegen den Terrorismus - Weltkrieg IV; Vietnam - Front im Krieg gegen den Kommunismus, Irak - Front im Krieg gegen den Terrorismus.